M e m o r i a: I
by o p i u m - c a t h a r s i s
Summary: It was a secret, a burnt stain hidden deep within his chest. -Toushirou x OC -


**A/N: **This is just a random fiction I thought of. Based on **"Convergence of Fate"** by Arsenous Elation. To get a glimpse of the OC's and Toushirou's affection, please read it:f

f a n f i c t i o n .net/s/5762116/1/Convergence_of_Fate

And if you want you can give your insights after you read the story, if there is any. Also, can you guess who the writer is: the one who documented the Memoria?

* * *

M e m o r i a: I

EDITED: 05.31.2010

* * *

The affection which had transpired between them could never be understood nor justified by standard means alone.

It takes the keenest of eyes to see even a glimmer of it. It requires the widest and most open of minds to decipher its padlocked layers. More than knowledge, so much more than experience – the most versatile teacher, is needed to measure even a forth of it.

Outwardly, it is diminutive – bleak – too vague – too faded – to recognize. However in reality, it could span, _cover_ the universe with its multifaceted stratums.

It is up to you, reader, what to make of from what I have documented from various thoughts and _Memoria_ of Rangiku Matsumoto, Lieutenant of the 10th Division. It is up to you to answer what made their love misunderstood. Unseen. Immeasurable.

(If it ever was)

_Recorded by:_

1120.12194

* * *

Captain Toushirou Hitsugaya was never one for endearments, never one for displays of affection.

It was this trait that made him almost hard (and as easy – predictable) to read.

Like a memory game.

Parts of his emotions were laid out neatly in rows and columns, with their backs turned. One by one, they flip, exposed in public. It was easy, as the chronological order of his sentiments never changed. All emotions remained in the same place, embedded onto his soul. The hardest part of his game was the guessing part.

The decoding and remembering which was which took arduous and painful concentration over long stretches of time. His reasons, his motives, were sometimes so vague it was incoherent. The thin line between the real and false feelings – between personal life and duty – just added to the fickle humanity he had.

…

Captain Hitsugaya met the Queen many a century ago. He never elaborated much on their first meeting, and spoke little of the matter. It was a secret, a burnt stain hidden deep within his chest.

Never to be disclosed with his own permission.

Although it cultivated a morbid curiosity about the matter, it had to be left alone. It had to be. But as reserved as he was, there was something obtruding – the brutal evidence: a scarlet ribbon – from that closet (closed but evidently ajar) heart of his. And so it instigated more curiosity and could not be left alone.

"Tell me, Taichou!"

"What?"

"About the Manēre leader that you slew."

He froze at the question, his back turned away from me. This is where the game starts. His silence, the tension on his small shoulders, and the iced aura he emitted…signs that pointed at too many emotions.

And then there it was – the thing that defines his feelings from the other upturned ones: the extended silence.

Long and unwavering. Then followed by hollow footsteps walking away.

It was all too obvious.

* * *

It was deep-rooted, the matter which concerns the captain and that immortal. And those roots, gnarled and scarred, clung to the past and reached out to the present times like a leech. Sucking their way towards the future – an expanding and consuming memory black hole.

To uproot them will shake (corrode) the very foundation which sustains Captain Hitsugaya himself.

* * *

The 21st century was the dawn of the end.

It was during this time span that the taichou met Akiko Fumisawa. Akiko, with her red hair and lucid jade eyes. She had a fire within her; an intensity possessed by youth. She was so lively and fresh, so loud and random that Hitsugaya was taken aback by her energy. Dazed by a luminosity that she emitted. But he failed to see a vital point from the start. Hitsugaya, the child prodigy, failed to surpass a milestone.

He failed to see that there were double-edged daggers behind Akiko's eyes.

* * *

"Why is that, Toushirou?"

A pause, before she continued—breaking the silence.

"Why is it that your presence chokes me too much?"

The captain never looked so blank, so stoic, in my whole servitude under him. It was easy to decipher that emotion, to upturn its back in exposure.

* * *

It was Akiko who disclosed her feelings first. Said she was immorally in love with an undead man – boy. She was smiling, laughing as if it was a joke.

"What's so funny about that?" Taichou asked with a frown.

Akiko laughed harder, wording it all out in between gasps while clutching her sides, "It's…because…I'm talking…about _you_."

A long silence ensued. It was a good thing they didn't know I was there. Taichou could have yelled at me endlessly.

* * *

"…Milk? Don't be ridiculous."

"Well, sleeping well to grow is ridiculous too!"

"Shut up!"

"Tell me that when you're already taller than me."

"Why you—!"

* * *

"Thank you," was all she said as he gave her the present.

Then she ruffled his hair, a smile on her lips.

That was the only time Captain Hitsugaya stopped himself from berating Akiko because of her actions. It was the only moment that they both showed their harmony in public.

* * *

Her transformation had been painful for him. It was slow and deliberate. And both of them watched it as it progressed.

It began when Akiko started seeing herself as a shadow; faceless and formless. Taichou reassured her discreetly. It seemed to work. Temporarily.

* * *

His emotion was apparent. There was no need to guess. It was desperation.

"Where's Akiko?"

"I-I…—taichou…"

"Tell me, Matsumoto!"

"She's nowhere to be found."

She had been seized by the False Councilors. This point was the prologue of hell.

* * *

Bruised. Burned. Defiled. It was a miracle Akiko emerged from her abduction whole and sane. She was strong and determined but after those tortures… _I just couldn't imagine._

"Seven ordeals. For each of them." She told the story, gripping the chair tightly.

All listened.

…

_Too painful to hear it all. The brutal ones were too hard to miss._

"He…He fed me. Rats a-and snakes. All of them—_alive._"

"…Boiling oil—"

It continued, until she had to be stopped. Taichou's fists were pale, his eyes closed and his lips bitten down harshly as stood in front of her. Akiko cried, bringing her hands to her face in shame.

Akiko was raped.

* * *

_Their affection was hidden from us, the world. How I wish I could see it._

_

* * *

_

Recovery.

"I will help her."

It was a vain promise. There was no recovery at that point. She was already morphing.

* * *

Evil. Akiko had become evil.

Her human soul had become rotten away. Toushirou watched as she shed all of her humanity and donned her crown of sins.

He called to her, pleaded her to come back. All futile. It was like ridding the paper of its own soot.

Akiko Fumisawa was already burned.

And she wanted to open Inferno to burn everyone else.

* * *

The war commenced and she refused to let him be imperiled: it was a sign. She might still be human underneath. So, he talked to her for long periods of time, tried to convince her until the end.

* * *

Captain Hitsugaya succeeded. Her eyes were opened and her human heart was dug out from the earth.

She smiled. Promised to end the war she created.

* * *

Taichou waited for her return, stayed until she came. No one else knows what happened that night.

The only thing we know is that when we came to see them, we only found a sleeping Hitsugaya carried by Kisuke Urahara.

There was no Akiko.

"She wanted to say 'Hi' to you guys." Urahara said, his head bowed as he walked.

We all understood the message.

* * *

Silences were always present in between them. Mellow and calming—just like opium.

How I wished that her passing was like that. Not the other kind of silence. The harsh and spiked with needles kind.


End file.
